On Wednesday after a day of rest in the rain at Big Heart Lake, Mark Mathews (leader), Brian Shields (14 year old Eagle Scout), Miles, Joe Griffith (my nephew and Miles cousin), Alec Rodeback and Dane Hansen set out for Azure Lake. Big Heart Lake sits in a deep narrow glacier carved basin, steep cliffs and ridge lines line the lake on the side we camped on. There is a established trail 7 miles from the West Foss trail head to Big Heart. From Big Heart on the trail is less established and much more difficult. Our route was to follow the crest of the ridge east of Big Heart down to the end of the lake and then down to Chetwoot Lake across its outlet and cross country to Azure Lake. We were destined to be in terrain where we would not see another soul for three days.
We followed the climbers path up the ridge to gain the top of the ridge line where we stopped for lunch. Gorgeous views of Angeline and Big Heart Lake were viewable from either side of the ridge. We made our way off the high ridge covered in trees, to then cross another smaller ridge that was more rocky and down to the outlet of Chetwoot. Here the terrain transitions to a series of rock filled ravines and smaller tarns as we made our way down toward Azure Lake. Moderate granite cliffs have over time calved off rocks that tumble down and fill the ravines, at times you walk your way through them and at times you climb across them, stepping from rock to rock. Some of these rocks are much older and their hard lines and shapes have been worn and rounded with time and weather. Some of these rocks are much newer and they have sharp lines. The serrated edges of granite boulder can be sharp enough to cut you.
As Mark Matthews led the boys toward Azure I was in the back of the pack with Miles, encouraging him to keep going when I heard Wade yell at me that Joe had been hurt. I ran up to where Joe was sitting on the ground holding his right shin and there was a gash in his knee and blood was streaming down his leg. He had slipped and hit his knee on a sharp rock. I took off my pack and got Mark and I both got our first aid kits. I had a smallish butterfly bandaid that was around 2 1/2 inches long but the main center part of the bandaid wasn’t big enough to cover the gash and close the wound which was around 1.5 inches long, around 1/3 to a 1/2 inch wide and a 1/4 of an inch deep. With Mark applying pressure, I first placed on the butterfly bandaid and then with medical tape I ran long strips criss crossing from the bottom of the left knee to the top of the right and vice versa. I attached them to the skin away from the knee and then pulled them tight to the skin on the opposite corner or side. I then used tape to wrap around Joe’s leg above and below the knee to keep the long pieces of tape holding the wound together from coming off. Mark gave Joe a naproxen and I gave him a 600 mg Ibuprofen. Joe didn’t cry once throughout the entire ordeal.
Mark Matthews gave Joe one of his poles so that Joe had two and Joe attempted to hobble a few steps. The strain of swinging his legs, hoping and bending caused new blood to come gushing out of the bandaid. So I told Joe I would carry him. Mark Matthews took my pack on his shoulder and led the way and I put Joe over my shoulder in a fireman carry and we set off towards Azure. Joe is not a big kid, but he probably weighed around 90 lbs but he didn’t feel unbearably heavy. Occasionally I would switch him to piggy bak style when we were wading through brush or having to hop across boulders. I would imagine it was less than 1/4 of a mile that I carried him when we came to Azure Lake.
The southern approach to the lake is fairly steep and there didn’t seem to be any obvious campsites without having to descend and make our way around the lake. There was though a series of nice heather meadows and a small stream a hundred feet above the lake atop some cliffs. We opted to set up camp there and I got Joe in his tent and then starting cooking him some dinner. I then got out my newly purchased Delorme InReach, which is Satellite Emergency Notification Device “SEND" that uses a private satellite network to offer communication to the outside world where there is no cell service. The way it works is that I installed a Delorme Earthmate app on my iphone I can communicate via bluetooth to the Delorme InReach, which then relays messages via satellite. One service Delorme offers is the ability to initiate 160 character text messages to cell phones. I type on the phone, the data is transferred via bluetooth to the Delorme, the message uploads to a satellite spinning above the earth and then down to Delorme software who relay it to the phone # and then when the reply comes back, Delorme relays the message back into space and then back to my SEND.
I texted Seth, giving him a scant outline of the details of the accident and asking him to get in touch with Search and Rescue (SAR) to that I could text and consult them. Seth spent a ton of his time that evening calling and coordinating with the Sheriff department on the phone, walking them through the details. Seth responded via text giving me a cell number to text for SAR. SAR and I texted for a bit, (I think it was Ed Christian) slowly waiting for the message to ping back and forth from earth to space. I described Joe’s injuries and how I didn’t think he could walk out given the fact that the gash was quite big and deep and it being right over the top of his knee cap. Any movement of his knee would cause the wound to re-open and more blood. I said that we had hard miles either behind us or ahead of us and that I didn’t think we could manage carrying him but that we could maybe try. The detective said that he would send a SAR EMT out in the morning to visit and assess things and to just hang tight until I heard from them the next day.
I decided at this point to not notify Joe’s Mom and Dad, my brother Jon and his wife Anne. I figured since Joe wasn’t in pain, we were settled for the night. I knew help was coming but I didn’t really have any details and so rather have them worry all night I put that on me. As I lay in my tent I worried that the wound might reopen and Joe might bleed a lot more during the night. I gave Joe a headlamp so he could check on himself and told him to call my name if he needed anything. Fitfully I eventually fell asleep. Around 11:30 pm I woke to hear Joe calling my name. I got out and he said that his groin was really hurting him, so bad that it had woken him. I checked his knee and he wasn’t bleeding and I figured he was hurting from when I had fireman carried him to camp. I gave him another Ibuprofen and we both went back to bed.
The next morning I woke to watch the sunrise at 5 am and checked on Joe, he was sleeping soundly and said the pain had subsided. Around 8 am, I got a message from Seth asking me to text a new number. I assumed it was a new person on the day shift, it ended up being detective Josh Sweeney, he informed me that a SAR volunteer was enroute and would reach us at 9:30 am. I didn’t see how anyone could get there that fast, I thought they were reading distance in miles and were confused about the type of terrain it was. While I cooked breakfast for the boys, Mark Matthews wandered up the hill back towards Chetwoot to look for SAR. Sure enough around 10 am, a guy named Karl came into camp with Mark. He had been hiking since 2:30 am and had made very fast time over tough terrain to get to us so quickly. He’d gotten off work the day before and left his house at 11:30 pm!
Karl immediately sat down with Joe, checked his vitals, blood pressure and temperature. He took down a bunch of information about Joe : his birthday, weight, contact information for his parents and Stacey. After consulting with SAR base operations, Karl said that after looking at Joe he didn’t think he could walk out and they were evaluating three options : 1) They would carry Joe out. He estimated that it would take at least 75 people and that was maybe not enough. He later told us that there were 20 people already starting up the Big Heart Trail in case that became a necessary option. 2) They would get in a helicopter and they would hoist Joe out. 3) They would get in a helicopter and it would land and they would load up Joe. He also noted that another adult would have to fly out with Joe, I needed to stay with my son Miles and I needed Mark for his help with navigation and route finding (one leads and one sweeps the end of the group and then we switch), so we told him it would be Wade.
Karl went off to check out possible landing zones and to talk to SAR. After a bit he came back and said they were going with option 2, a hoist. He got the weights of Joe and Wade and their packs and asked us to start packing up camp and move up to an adjacent hill side where we could watch them do the evacuation. It was going not be until 12:30 pm that the chopper would arrive, due to crew availability and timing of the Blue Angels that had a scheduled fly over the mountains. I finally texted Stacy, Jon and Anne and let them know that Joe had an accident and he was getting choppered out. I told them King County had their phone numbers and would follow up with details. We said goodbye to Joe and Wade in the meadow and made our way back up the hill to sit on the moss covered boulders and wait the choppers arrival. Finally we heard the whack whack whack of the chopper blades as it flew over Azure Lake. Karl got on the radio and directed them in to our position and they hovered and we could see two figures in helmets and orange jumpsuits standing on the landing skids of the chopper. The hoist operator stayed on the skids the entire time and lowered down the chopper attendant down on a rope with the hoist and they set him down in the meadow. He had a yellow bag between his legs that had another rope, and a sling for Joe and a harness for Wade. The chopper attendant got everything ready and then guided the chopper rope in and hooked up Joe and then they started hoisting him up. Attached to the bottom of Joe’s sling was the other rope he had brought down in the bag and attached to the rope was Joe’s pack.
Once safely in the chopper, they dropped the bottom rope back down, and the chopper attendant on the ground guided the rope down again and they hooked into Wade and hoisted him up. Finally they rope came down one last time and this time both the chopper attendant and Karl hooked into the rope and they were both hoisted up. As they raised up the chopper attendant waved good bye and then the chopper headed off and out of sight.
Later I heard by text from Stacey that Joe was taken to a hospital in Monroe where he had 10 stitches to close the wound. Stacey drove over and got Joe and took him back to our house where he waited for his flight out on Saturday. Wade took Joe to the airport Saturday night as we hiked back out from Necklace Valley and Joe got home late Saturday and is recovering at home.
I reached out when we got home to the King County Search And Rescue Association (KCSAR) to enquire about the names of those involved in getting Joe out and they couldn’t give out names or contact information but they provided a way to send a snail mail that they could forward on. Here is a little bit about those involved and the nature of their response. King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) is responsible for search and rescue activities in King County, they have detectives that liaison with the volunteer Search and Rescue community. KCSO also operates an Air Support Unit that flies donated helicopters in SAR missions, which is the only full time law enforcement helicopter operation north of San Francisco. The larger KCSAR community is an entirely volunteer non-profit organization made up of 8 different units with about 500 members. When I reached out to Seth via my Delorme he contacted King County and they put him in touch with detectives Ed Christian and Josh Sweeney. I think it was Ed that I corresponded with Wednesday evening and it was Josh that I corresponded with the following morning.
Eric Rosenberg a volunteer with ESAR, who was the Operations Chief for this SAR event, and Glenn Wallace with KCSAR, told me that they put a lot of planning Wednesday night with Karl and half a dozen other SAR people on how we were going to get to you guys and what our options were for getting Joe out. They were initially informed by KCSO that a helicopter wouldn't be available for Thursday so we were anticipating a long difficult evacuation. They initially had over 22 volunteers respond to the mission from 4 different units that responded. They sent in 5 other teams carrying a lot of rescue gear (litter, wheel, ropes, crutches, vacuum splint, etc). Once they figured out it was going to take 7 hrs to hike to Azure Lake they re-requested a helicopter with their SAR deputy and one was able to be secured. Once they knew it was going to be a hoist mission the slowed down the volunteer response, which would normally have taken around 60+ volunteers and likely 20-24 hours. I am blown away by the response and help of such great organizations. They have my deepest gratitude. (I did use the footage from the video of King County Sheriff's Office Air Support in putting together the video of the rescue).
As for the eternal question of “what if”? Clearly if none of us had have come no one would have gotten hurt. But accidents happen, to everyone all the time. We can’t cower in our bedrooms for fear of what might happen. We have to be as prepared and as careful as we can. I am glad that we had our first aid kits and that I had a Delorme, they were both if not life saving, extremely important in us getting through this accident.
If you missed the link above here is the video I put together of the chopper evac and you can see more photos here.